17/01/2012

In 2011, the web page of the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition received 2,286,345 visits. This serves to confirm the trend of recent years and reflects a constant increase in the number of visitors to the AESAN portal. The same trend has also been observed for the Perseo Programme and the NAOS Strategy portals. We have gone from a total of 1,034,999 visitors in 2009 to 1,438,183 in 2010 and 2,286,345 in 2011. That is, an increase of 60% with respect to 2010 and more than 110% with respect to 2009.

The continual updating of content, concern to improve the quality of content, and the inclusion of new sections aimed at meeting the needs of different user profiles, are the reasons why the Agency page has been so well accepted by the Public.

The virtual office permits many of the AESAN-related procedures to be carried out online, for example; applications for registering industries established outside Spain but within the EU, the notification of the placing on the market of food supplements and permission to register prepared foods for special or dietary regimes.

Other tasks can also be carried out via the web. These include the notification of the placing on the Spanish market of milk formulas, requests for the registration of natural mineral waters and spring waters, and the registration of novel foods or the application to register substantial equivalences. In addition, complaints and suggestions and even requests for authorisation to use images, logos or documentation belonging to the AESAN can be processed via the web, provided the user holds a digital certificate.

We have direct access to the Spanish food composition database (RED BEDCA), a most useful tool for assessing the nutritional state of a population throughout its lifetime, both in times of health and of illness. One of the sections created in 2011 is the “What's new on the web” section, of great use to internauts as it allows you to view the most recently added information, without needing to browse through each section.

The publications section, where it was already possible to consult the material edited by the AESAN, now also includes information relating to the conferences organised by the Agency, including all the papers; a specific section with all the information about the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), as AESAN is its contact point; and the section called “The consumer’s corner”, which contains relevant information of special interest to the Public, ranging from recommendations to other matters of a more educational nature, and also including a specific point on consumers’ rights and the contact details for the leading consumer associations.

More información ( Pdf, 91.2 Kb )